The Wisdom of Ayn Rand

[Sloth]

[quote]orion wrote:

Not really, because not only is it right below the land, you also need to put some serious work into it to get the raw resources out of them.

[/quote]

And?

[Sloth]

[quote]666Rich wrote:

So there can be Positive externalities from Private property ownership. The negative externalities most oftenly cited from environmental concerns DO occur, but are still more easility mitigated than a tragedy of the commons.[/quote]

My point has nothing to do with “what’s the best system.” In fact, I said it was. My point is that I don’t need to lie to myself that the very concept of private, individually owned, property results(ed) from non-aggression, to support private property. Maybe planet “Hivemind,” but not on Earth.

[kamui]

Maybe planet “Hivemind,” but not on Earth.

yet the difference between the two is often unclear for Bernard Mandeville’s great great grandsons.

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]kilpaba wrote:

And why is that? If you are not using a religion for your moral basis then what are you using if not a secular or man made construct? Do you see a third rail here I cannot? It would appear that there is either a religious basis for a moral or a ‘man made’ rational one. Similarly if neither secular thinking or religious thinking can create a universal moral code what do you see accomplishing this?[/quote]

No, the “third rail” you fail to see is Natural Law - I differentiate divine or providential law from religion. There are many different religions. What you desrive as “religious thinking” is the source I am referring to.

You do of course realize that just because you are a libertarian doesn’t mean you, personally, cannot have a moral code that lies outside of the non-aggression principle (in so far as they do not conflict)? So for example, you could be a Christian and a Libertarian and there wouldn’t be a conflict (necessarily). You do get that right? Libertarianism =/= secularist or relativist.

Completely irrelevant, and you remain confused. A “personal” moral code isn’t a moral code because…wait for it…it’s not a moral if it is inherently personal. Morals transcend individual opinion - that is what makes them morals. If each individual gets to determine according to preference, it ain’t a moral.

By your definition, libertarians permit people to define their moral space as they see fit. Want to adopt a Christian ethic and “morality”? Fine, you’re free to. Want to adopt something completely different? That’s fine, too. And all of these individual choices are morally indistinguishable, because they are each, although very different, the product of individual preference and one isn’t any better or more authoritative than another.

This is the opposite of morality. Morality says something is right or wrong whether an individual wants to abide by its rules or not. Thus, it trasncends individual preference and opinion - it is not defined by it.

And, this is why libertarians are, in fact, moral relativists - they allow people to individually define their own moral space and definition. And many of the morals that libertarians insist are negotiable as personal choices are morals our civilization has decided are not negotiable.

It is a very tricky topic to say the least. I do, personally, think you have a moral duty to take care of a child.

On what basis? It isn’t a subset of the all-important non-aggression principle. So what is the justification of this moral duty to take care of children?

But again this is absolutely not germane to our discussion and I can only conclude it is a cheap trick on your part to distract from the fact you have been proved blatantly wrong on your original point.

C’mon, stop wasting my time, junior - it’s certainly germane because I am trying to establish just how relativistic libertarianism is, and how libertarianism consciously chooses not to defend the morals we find indispensable to our civilization.

The problem we have is that you have no idea what you talking about - you don’t get the concept of morality. Morality by definition means that some individual preferences have to be wrong, and I am trying to understand exactly which individual preferences are wrong within the context of your ideology.

Libertarianism, by virtue of the fact it has an absolute moral principle, is NOT a morally relative system. It fits every single characteristic of an absolute moral law, as can be seen from the definition of moral absolutism outlined previously. So the fact you continue on with this line of reasoning is pretty stunning. It is quite plain it has as morally absolute a principle as any other philosophy out there and this is not sophistry. Simple definition of which it checks all the boxes.

Oh, it’s simple all right, which is why I keep asking the question - we’ve established the “moral absolutism!” of the non-aggression principle. Okey dokey - is that the only one? And are you conceding that all recognized “morals” that are not a subset or derivative of the non-aggression principle are not, in fact, “morals” under libertarianism?

Instead of trying to cavil around the question, answer it.

It is a null contract, because, get this, he has an ABSOLUTE right to his person and to not have unwanted physical violence towards him, so just as soon as he wants to walk away from that deal he can. There is no contract that could ever take away his ABSOLUTE MORAL RIGHT to his body. He can assent to violence if he chooses, but he can never concede his right not to have that moral right.

This is inconsistent with his freedom to contract for whatever he wants, and violence was contemplated in the contract. Contracting, by its nature, gives up some rights in exchange for benefits. That is all that he has done. Yet you would interfere with this freedom on what basis? You don’t have one.

It would only be a red herring if it was distracting from the real argument- it is not. You keep insisting that libertarianism implies moral relativism because it lets people follow their own beliefs without the threat of physical violence as a result (again just like the system we have currently in this country).

Good Lord. What a flake. Look at your sentence. Of course, I have suggested none of that - I’ve never said that because libertarianism lets people follow their beliefs without the threat of physical violence, it’s bad.

You’ve done this throughout - straw man after straw man.

It’s a red herring because it’s irrelevant - what libertarianism permits doesn’t shed any light on whether a certain moral exists or not. People may be free to engage in immoral behavior all the time - their freedom to do so does not negate the moral that makes their behavior immoral.

Try and keep up. At a minimum, understand my position before responding.

It may or may not condone their belief system morally (e.g. it would not condone an ideology that disregarded the individual), but asserts libertarians are not justified in physically hurting these people for this system even if it is flawed. The fact we do not murder people for disagreeing with us DOES NOT mean that we do not think there is a universal moral code or that they are not wrong. Can you see this very, very basic distinction?

Straw man. I never said anything about “physically hurting people”.

For the purpose of our discussion, the main premise you have based many of your objections on is the moral relativism you feel is implied by Libertarianism, correct? If that is the case, then it doesn’t matter how many principles are absolute- one is completely sufficient to destroy your premise.

Read above, and uh, no it isn’t. We have a big set of morals out there that our civilization has recognized as important - libertarians say “these morals? They ain’t morals. People can and should be able to abide by them, or not.” That’s relativism in fact. The fact that you attest that libertarians do trumpet one (unsubstantiated) “moral” of the non-aggression principle doesn’t negate the relativism inherent in the philosophy with respect to the morality I’ve been asking you about since we began.

Oh and do you mean unconstitutional or in violation of the non-aggression principle? Not the same thing, but I know recognizing important philosophical distinctions isn’t always that easy for you.

Well, unconstitutional, because your dumb ass suggested our First Amendment gave us carte blanche libertarianism - so you tell me?

Constitutionally I don’t know, but my guess is it would not be, given the deference to states rights. But who knows if someone challenged it how it would shake out with the right judges deciding the case.

Wait, wait, wait - not two lines above you snark that you know “recognizing important philosophical distinctions [aren’t] always that easy for [me]”? And you don’t know the answer to this question, which is derived from your gum-flapping about the First Amendment giving you libertarian superpowers?

Well, genius, the answer is - of course public nudity laws are not unconstitutional, and yes, we actually do know how it would “shake out” no matter who the judges were.

Hilarious.

From a non-aggression standpoint, it would be fine. The right to no physical violence does not mean the right not to ever be offended. Suppose my religion or belief system said the color pink was sacrilegious, would you think the color should be banned if enough people agreed?

So, from a policy standpoint, you are ok with a repeal of public nudity laws? Yes or no?

This is a very confused rejoinder. If we have, over time with ebbs and flows, made a net positive gain isn’t this a TRAJECTORY TOWARDS FREEDOM? I can make a line graph of what this would look like if that would help. The line would track upwards overtime FYI (sort of like an upwards trajectory!). The fact that this has occurred precisely because people have asserted their individual liberties in the face of their governments more and more over time seems to indicate that libertarianism is on to something, you know, because that is the heart of our philosophy and all.

Where is this net positive gain? How in the era of the ubiquitous nanny-state that we complain of are you convinced that there is a net-positive gain in “freedom”?

While on this magic carpet ride into “freedom” over time, how do you explain the exponential expansion of the nanny-state during the exact same time period of “gaining freedom!”? How you explain the near-mirror image of the trajectory in social libertinism and the rise of the nanny-state?

The nanny-state is bloated and mammoth. One of the sacred rules of medicine is that a swelling is a symptom of an underlying sickness. Libertarians - especially those completely ignorant of history - keep whistling past this problem without explanation.

[kilpaba]

Boy this keeps getting better and better.

No, the “third rail” you fail to see is Natural Law - I differentiate divine or providential law from religion. There are many different religions. What you desrive as “religious thinking” is the source I am referring to.

Natural law is considered a rational construct. It is not ‘man made’ in the same sense as common law is considered to be, but even if you consider it to exist outside of humanity or God it is discovered through rationality. In this way I would consider it a rational construct, but if you want to consider rules like this divine or pre-existing man or God I don’t disagree.

[quote]Completely irrelevant, and you remain confused. A “personal” moral code isn’t a moral code because…wait for it…it’s not a moral if it is inherently personal. Morals transcend individual opinion - that is what makes them morals. If each individual gets to determine according to preference, it ain’t a moral.

By your definition, libertarians permit people to define their moral space as they see fit. Want to adopt a Christian ethic and “morality”? Fine, you’re free to. Want to adopt something completely different? That’s fine, too. And all of these individual choices are morally indistinguishable, because they are each, although very different, the product of individual preference and one isn’t any better or more authoritative than another.

This is the opposite of morality. Morality says something is right or wrong whether an individual wants to abide by its rules or not. Thus, it trasncends individual preference and opinion - it is not defined by it.

And, this is why libertarians are, in fact, moral relativists - they allow people to individually define their own moral space and definition. And many of the morals that libertarians insist are negotiable as personal choices are morals our civilization has decided are not negotiable.[/quote]

You are simply misunderstanding what I have been saying the whole time. When I say you can have your own personal moral standards, this is not a concession that your morals are CORRECT by virtue of the fact you choose them. It is simply an acknowledgement that you can believe what (as right or wrong as that might be) without the fear of physical reprisal. This does not imply that your beliefs are correct. And this is why it is not a morally relative philosophy. To paraphrase Voltaire ‘I may disagree with you, but I will defend to death your right to say it’. Make sense?

On what basis? It isn’t a subset of the all-important non-aggression principle. So what is the justification of this moral duty to take care of children?

And my binary friend, it doesn’t have to be a sub-set of the non-aggression principle. It is not as if you either believe in the non-aggression principle and nothing else or you have to disregard it. Libertarianism is not at odds with the categorical imperative or any natural laws. In fact, the non-aggression principle can be argued to be a derivative of both. So who cares if this is not directly addressed by the non-aggression principle? It could quite easily be addressed by another natural law or categorical imperative.

C’mon, stop wasting my time, junior - it’s certainly germane because I am trying to establish just how relativistic libertarianism is, and how libertarianism consciously chooses not to defend the morals we find indispensable to our civilization.

Ah this is cute! Calling someone junior when things aren’t going your way is such a big boy thing to do!

But sadly it isn’t really germane since it is obvious that libertarianism implies an absolute moral principle (how could it possibly do this and still be a morally relative system?). And your claim that moral relativism defeats itself by virtue of having an absolute principle (that everything is relative) is wrong so please don’t drag that horse out here too. BTW it is wrong in the same way having ‘nothing’ in a room doesn’t automatically mean there is ‘something’ in the room (that ‘something’ being ‘nothing’).

[quote]Oh, it’s simple all right, which is why I keep asking the question - we’ve established the “moral absolutism!” of the non-aggression principle. Okey dokey - is that the only one? And are you conceding that all recognized “morals” that are not a subset or derivative of the non-aggression principle are not, in fact, “morals” under libertarianism?

Instead of trying to cavil around the question, answer it.[/quote]

So you admit it has an absolute moral principle then? Which would make most of this post from you pretty silly since you claim the opposite. Hopefully you were just being sarcastic. You’d still be wrong, but at least then you would be consistent.

I would also say that yes that is probably the only moral principle of Libertarianism. Anything that does not fall under the non-aggression principle and its many, many sub-sets (if this is even possible) would not be ‘moral acts’ so far as libertarianism is considered. But again, since libertarianism is not incompatible with natural law, religion or most any other ethical system this is not a problem.

This is inconsistent with his freedom to contract for whatever he wants, and violence was contemplated in the contract. Contracting, by its nature, gives up some rights in exchange for benefits. That is all that he has done. Yet you would interfere with this freedom on what basis? You don’t have one.

It isn’t inconsistent at all, but that was a good, if juvenile, try. This objection makes sense until you actually take a couple of seconds to consider what an absolute moral rule implies. Because the right to non-aggression is immutable, he can never sign away this right. This is why such a contract is non-binding from the start. He can willingly work for someone for free, or take an ass beating if he chooses, but since his immutable right to non-aggression always exists he can decide not to receive aggression any time he chooses, no matter what he signed, and walk away from the contract.

[quote]Good Lord. What a flake. Look at your sentence. Of course, I have suggested none of that - I’ve never said that because libertarianism lets people follow their beliefs without the threat of physical violence, it’s bad.

You’ve done this throughout - straw man after straw man.

It’s a red herring because it’s irrelevant - what libertarianism permits doesn’t shed any light on whether a certain moral exists or not. People may be free to engage in immoral behavior all the time - their freedom to do so does not negate the moral that makes their behavior immoral.

Try and keep up. At a minimum, understand my position before responding.[/quote]

This is rich. The reason it is not a red herring is because all I have ever said is that libertarianism does not necessarily condone another moral code simply because it does not threaten physical violence. It can hold that the moral code in question is wrong in theory, and certainly in practice, if it transgresses the non-aggression principle. You rejected this statement, perhaps out of genuine confusion as to what I meant, and thus the only reasonable conclusion is that you believe the opposite. I never figured you really did, but this was the implication of rejecting my statement.

It may or may not condone their belief system morally (e.g. it would not condone an ideology that disregarded the individual), but asserts libertarians are not justified in physically hurting these people for this system even if it is flawed. The fact we do not murder people for disagreeing with us DOES NOT mean that we do not think there is a universal moral code or that they are not wrong. Can you see this very, very basic distinction?

This is not a straw man since I am saying NOTHING about what you believe or your argument. I am elaborating my own argument. But way to try to use your favorite logical fallacy.

Read above, and uh, no it isn’t. We have a big set of morals out there that our civilization has recognized as important - libertarians say “these morals? They ain’t morals. People can and should be able to abide by them, or not.” That’s relativism in fact. The fact that you attest that libertarians do trumpet one (unsubstantiated) “moral” of the non-aggression principle doesn’t negate the relativism inherent in the philosophy with respect to the morality I’ve been asking you about since we began.

Boy, how could I have ever gotten the idea the relativism factor was important in this discussion?

[quote]My origional point was that:

1. Certain morals exist whose health are crucial to our society

2. Libertarians, being moral relativists, see these “morals” as not morals at all, and treat them as “take them or leave them” - which is relativism in fact

3. Bad things happen when we don’t consider these “morals” morals any more.[/quote]

But anyways, it is entirely possible that you could have actions a society deems important that are in fact not subject to moral evaluation. Suppose there is a massive societal push to have people stop chewing gum. People write articles about it, scream at folks who do it, and ban the sale of the stuff. Is chewing gum then a moral action subject to moral scrutiny? No it isn’t, at least if you believe in a natural law system or a non-relativistic system.

Quite simply not every societal convention is an actual moral no matter how much society says it is. For a guy that purports to believe in natural law that transcends both God and man you sure do put a lot of stock in ‘what society recognizes as important’. In fact, that position seems oddly, oh what’s the word, RELATIVISTIC.

The fact that libertarianism and the non-aggression principle do not take a stance on whether your skirt length is moral or amoral does not mean it is a morally relative system. It simply means not everything is subject to moral scrutiny. Some things are just morally neutral acts.

Well, unconstitutional, because your dumb ass suggested our First Amendment gave us carte blanche libertarianism - so you tell me?

Oh did I, could you please point it out?

Wait, wait, wait - not two lines above you snark that you know “recognizing important philosophical distinctions [aren’t] always that easy for [me]”? And you don’t know the answer to this question, which is derived from your gum-flapping about the First Amendment giving you libertarian superpowers?

Say huh? Unfortunately, as I have mentioned, the constitution allows for quite a bit of interpretation these days and while at present these laws are constitutional, slavery once was as well. This was part of my original critique of the deficiencies of the constitution in restricting interpretation. This was also the point of this statement, namely that who knows how things will be interpreted in the future.

[quote]Well, genius, the answer is - of course public nudity laws are not unconstitutional, and yes, we actually do know how it would “shake out” no matter who the judges were.

Hilarious.[/quote]

My goodness, I do love it when you get so flapped about these things. The name calling, as usual, is a testament to your claimed maturity and obviously superior mind.

As stated above, the same was said about many things that are now constitutional/unconstitutional. Gay marriage bans being one (although that is still playing out), sodomy laws, privacy laws, etc. So I hate to tell you, but a quick perusal of history would seem to indicate who is sitting on the bench makes quite a bit of difference in how seemingly “obvious” things are viewed.

So, from a policy standpoint, you are ok with a repeal of public nudity laws? Yes or no?

I would be fine with this yes.

[quote]Where is this net positive gain? How in the era of the ubiquitous nanny-state that we complain of are you convinced that there is a net-positive gain in “freedom”?

While on this magic carpet ride into “freedom” over time, how do you explain the exponential expansion of the nanny-state during the exact same time period of “gaining freedom!”? How you explain the near-mirror image of the trajectory in social libertinism and the rise of the nanny-state?

The nanny-state is bloated and mammoth. One of the sacred rules of medicine is that a swelling is a symptom of an underlying sickness. Libertarians - especially those completely ignorant of history - keep whistling past this problem without explanation.[/quote]

My god man, not just one post ago you said we had made great advances in freedom! And I quote:

We’ve made tremendous gains. This is the point I have making all along. I have no interest in undermining those gains by indulging in frivolous ideologies - like libertarianism.

Have you confused even yourself? You have gone from saying there is no trend towards freedom, then that we have made great gains and you don’t want to lose them, to asking me what gains we have made and highlighting a bunch of examples how we have not gained freedom. This is getting pitiful at this point.

Listen, feel free to fire off another post tearing into me and defending your position, because believe me I want the last word as badly as you do, but this has become too much of a distraction. It is clear we are at best talking at cross points and simply misunderstanding each other or worse it is an intractable debate anyways. I think we can both agree we have wasted too much time on this already. I disagree with you and think you are wrong as you do me and we have both stated our case repeatedly. I am not an idiot and you are not an idiot, even if you are spectacularly wrong:) After your next set of responses let’s move on.

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]kilpaba wrote:

You are simply misunderstanding what I have been saying the whole time. When I say you can have your own personal moral standards, this is not a concession that your morals are CORRECT by virtue of the fact you choose them. It is simply an acknowledgement that you can believe what (as right or wrong as that might be) without the fear of physical reprisal. This does not imply that your beliefs are correct. And this is why it is not a morally relative philosophy. To paraphrase Voltaire ‘I may disagree with you, but I will defend to death your right to say it’. Make sense? [/quote]

Yes, it makes sense, I don’t misunderstand you, and you have repeated it several times. And it is irrelevant now as it was irrelevant then to the main issue. You keep skipping to Step Two: enforcement of morality (physical reprisal). I am interested in Step One: is there morality that exists independent of personal preference? Is there a transcendent code that says certain personal preferences are wrong whether the individual agrees with the wrongness of it or not?

You simply refuse to address this basic question, no matter how straightforwardly I ask it. I am not interested in libertarianism’s “compatibility” with various moral schedules. It’s irrelevant.

And my binary friend, it doesn’t have to be a sub-set of the non-aggression principle. It is not as if you either believe in the non-aggression principle and nothing else or you have to disregard it. Libertarianism is not at odds with the categorical imperative or any natural laws. In fact, the non-aggression principle can be argued to be a derivative of both. So who cares if this is not directly addressed by the non-aggression principle? It could quite easily be addressed by another natural law or categorical imperative.

This is the problem - you won’t answer the question. I am asking you why there is a moral duty to take care of children? What is the basis for it? It doesn’t matter if libertarianism is “not at odds with it”.

If there is a moral duty to take care of a child, that means that if a libertarian decides not to take care of a child, he is acting immorally - he is breaking a moral law. So, is the choice to take care of your child morally equal to the choice not to take care of your child…not by the lights of your personal preference, but by the lights of a universal morality?

You won’t answer it. I get it. But your refusal to simply answer the question tells me all I need to know.

Ah this is cute! Calling someone junior when things aren’t going your way is such a big boy thing to do!

What isn’t going my way? I’m debating with someone who thinks he found a libertarian decoder ring, who doesn’t understand the concept of basic morality, and who thinks loggorhea means he is producing good arguments? Everything you’ve said supports the point I made early on - libertarians believe Freedom is an End, not a Means and don’t care a wit about the crucial moral hummus society needs to fend off the nanny-state.

If anything, I have you to thank for making my point for me.

But sadly it isn’t really germane since it is obvious that libertarianism implies an absolute moral principle (how could it possibly do this and still be a morally relative system?). And your claim that moral relativism defeats itself by virtue of having an absolute principle (that everything is relative) is wrong so please don’t drag that horse out here too. BTW it is wrong in the same way having ‘nothing’ in a room doesn’t automatically mean there is ‘something’ in the room (that ‘something’ being ‘nothing’).

Well, no, the aside that moral relativism refutes itself by asserting a universal rule isn’t “wrong” - logicians and philosophers have used it in defense of those proclaiming that there is no objective truth for some time (i.e., defense against the post-modernists), but perhaps you haven’t run across that on Lew Rockwell’s websites.

Secondly, libertarianism does imply moral relativism for the basic reason that it operates on a platform that people define morality individually. That is relativism in fact. Don’t get it? Not my problem to fix. It’s been explained. You don’t require or adhere to absolutism with respect to other individual’s defining morality any way they want.

So you admit it has an absolute moral principle then? Which would make most of this post from you pretty silly since you claim the opposite. Hopefully you were just being sarcastic. You’d still be wrong, but at least then you would be consistent.

Sure, libertarian’s committed moral principle is that an individual gets to define morality as they see fit. C’mon, enough. I’ve been in these debates with libertarians in these pages and the libertarians are proud to admit their relativism - in fact, they say it is essential to libertarianism.

I would also say that yes that is probably the only moral principle of Libertarianism. Anything that does not fall under the non-aggression principle and its many, many sub-sets (if this is even possible) would not be ‘moral acts’ so far as libertarianism is considered. But again, since libertarianism is not incompatible with natural law, religion or most any other ethical system this is not a problem.

But wait - you said that people had a moral duty to take care of their child, and such a duty isn’t a subset of the non-aggression principle. You continue to make no sense.

Compatibility is not the issue. Morality is. And you can’t commit to this crucial question: is there a moral duty above and separate from individual preference for a parent to take care of its child?

You’ve said inconsistent things. Which is it?

It isn’t inconsistent at all, but that was a good, if juvenile, try. This objection makes sense until you actually take a couple of seconds to consider what an absolute moral rule implies. Because the right to non-aggression is immutable, he can never sign away this right. This is why such a contract is non-binding from the start. He can willingly work for someone for free, or take an ass beating if he chooses, but since his immutable right to non-aggression always exists he can decide not to receive aggression any time he chooses, no matter what he signed, and walk away from the contract.

Good to know. Next time an MMA fighter decides to back out of a contractual commitment to fight someone on the basis that the contract is “null”, no doubt he’ll win.

This is rich. The reason it is not a red herring is because all I have ever said is that libertarianism does not necessarily condone another moral code simply because it does not threaten physical violence. It can hold that the moral code in question is wrong in theory, and certainly in practice, if it transgresses the non-aggression principle. You rejected this statement, perhaps out of genuine confusion as to what I meant, and thus the only reasonable conclusion is that you believe the opposite. I never figured you really did, but this was the implication of rejecting my statement.

What libertarianism “condones” is not and has never been the issue. Independent of what libertarianism “condones”, is there a moral code that transcends individual preference? You’ve never said. You have your reasons to want to talk around it, and frankly I’ve grown bored of it.

[quote]Boy, how could I have ever gotten the idea the relativism factor was important in this discussion?

But anyways, it is entirely possible that you could have actions a society deems important that are in fact not subject to moral evaluation. Suppose there is a massive societal push to have people stop chewing gum. People write articles about it, scream at folks who do it, and ban the sale of the stuff. Is chewing gum then a moral action subject to moral scrutiny? No it isn’t, at least if you believe in a natural law system or a non-relativistic system.

Quite simply not every societal convention is an actual moral no matter how much society says it is. For a guy that purports to believe in natural law that transcends both God and man you sure do put a lot of stock in ‘what society recognizes as important’. In fact, that position seems oddly, oh what’s the word, RELATIVISTIC.

The fact that libertarianism and the non-aggression principle do not take a stance on whether your skirt length is moral or amoral does not mean it is a morally relative system. It simply means not everything is subject to moral scrutiny. Some things are just morally neutral acts. [/quote]

There are plenty of rules that fall into this category - for example, which side of the road to drive on across countries. So what? What is your point? Does any of this answer the question posed to you about what morality exists outside of individual preferences?

More diversion and deflection.

Oh did I, could you please point it out?

Are you serious? You really want me to go back a few pages and highlight your point about the First Amendment enshrining the libertarian construct of relativism? The one that prompted my original question to you about public nudity laws?

But more to the point, next time just say “yikes, I have no idea what the First Amendment is about” - it’ll save me and others the trouble.

Say huh? Unfortunately, as I have mentioned, the constitution allows for quite a bit of interpretation these days and while at present these laws are constitutional, slavery once was as well. This was part of my original critique of the deficiencies of the constitution in restricting interpretation. This was also the point of this statement, namely that who knows how things will be interpreted in the future.

You’ve outed yourself as a rank amateur going down this path. There isn’t a serious constitutional argument that public nudity laws are unconstitutional. Ridiculous.

My goodness, I do love it when you get so flapped about these things. The name calling, as usual, is a testament to your claimed maturity and obviously superior mind.

No, not really - it’s exasperation with overestimating that you have some sense of what you are talking about and then realizing this many posts in that you don’t.

As stated above, the same was said about many things that are now constitutional/unconstitutional. Gay marriage bans being one (although that is still playing out), sodomy laws, privacy laws, etc. So I hate to tell you, but a quick perusal of history would seem to indicate who is sitting on the bench makes quite a bit of difference in how seemingly “obvious” things are viewed.

Seriously, do yourself a favor and call it quits on this point.

I would be fine with this yes.

I rest my case. Frivolous libertarianism is nothing must a recipe for sloppy thinking like this.

Have you confused even yourself? You have gone from saying there is no trend towards freedom, then that we have made great gains and you don’t want to lose them, to asking me what gains we have made and highlighting a bunch of examples how we have not gained freedom. This is getting pitiful at this point.

Oh dear, you are arguing with yourself. Of course we have made gains, and I want to preserve those gains. And those gains are in danger of being undermined by the sad progress of the nanny-state, and I’d like to arrest that decline.

You aren’t quite as good as you’d hoped you were at this. That said, my note on history was that it was cyclical - and being cyclical, there was progress, and there was regress. My point was that the progress can be undermined by silly ideologies (like yours) and if we aren’t careful, we will slip into a cycle of regress.

Now, yapping aside, you never answered the question - why, if we are on this march of freedom has the nanny-state grown in lockstep with these “gains” made in the form of social libertinism?

See, you have this curious habit of avoiding direct questions. I ask if there is morality outside of individual preference, I get irrelvant talk about what libertarianism is “compatible with” and that “you know, you can be a libertarian and a Christian”, etc. - anything but a straight answer. I ask what is your explanation as to why the nanny-state grows in lockstep along with social libertinism, I get mealy-mouthed deflections.

So, it feels like a dead end. I don’t know how you can write such lengthy posts while saying so little that is directly on point to the questions raised, but I’m over it.

I think we can both agree we have wasted too much time on this already…After your next set of responses let’s move on.

Yup, and done.

[kilpaba]

Yup, and done.

Huzzah!

[phaethon]

This has been a good conversation between thunderbolt and kilpaba. There are a few minor issues that need to be cleared up before it can go any further (lest it continue round and round in circles). I’d like to point them out:

• 1. Libertarianism has an absolute moral principle and thus technically it can be considered not to be a morally relative system. However in practice having a single moral principle does not stop a belief system from being morally relative.

A good example is a belief system of absolute relative morality. If I always believe that everything is morally relative no matter what then I have exactly 1 absolute rule. By having an absolute rule the system can technically be considered a morally absolute system. At the same time it is by definition a morally relative system.

In a practical sense when you talk about a belief system being morally relative you are talking about common morals rather than a single moral or a couple of morals*. Now a system can ignore these morals if it convincingly argues (or a member can convincingly argue) why these common morals are not important or really morals.

*Or another widely held view/list of morals such as religious morals or natural law morals.

Lets not argue any more technicalities because they are silly.

• 2. Some of the statements made by kilpaba are confusing. The most important instance I have read so far is here:

[quote]He can willingly work for someone for free, or take an ass beating if he chooses, but since his immutable right to non-aggression always exists he can decide not to receive aggression any time he chooses, no matter what he signed, and walk away from the contract.
[/quote]

Can you explain exactly what you mean here? So a person can always walk away from a contract and cannot be dealt with via force?

Does this mean that if I have a contract with thunderbolt to do punishing physical labor for me, and I pay him up front for the training, he can then walk away after the training and I cannot use force to make him stick to his end of the bargain?

After all how do you define aggression in this instance? Is a contract to be beaten up aggression but a contract to perform physical work that takes a similar toll on the body not aggression? Why?

It does look like you are trying to sneakily insert morals that are not a subset of the non-aggression principle into the conversation. (Like productive hard labor is ok but just beating someone up is not).

[orion]

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

Not really, because not only is it right below the land, you also need to put some serious work into it to get the raw resources out of them.

[/quote]

And?[/quote]

meaning, that the whole ore issure is part of the whole land issue and that large amounts of capital are required to get it out of the ground.

You could make the argument that while land is more or less just there that it should not include the rights to the stuff underground and in a lot of jurisdictions it does not.

All of this however does not take away from the age old general principle of finders keepers or if you want it more elegant, prior tempore, potior iure in combination with res nullius cedit occupandi.

Meaning, if it belongs to nobody else you can take it (with a few caveats like hunting or fishing rights) and it belongs to you in combination with the older right being the stronger one.

[phaethon]

[quote]orion wrote:
All of this however does not take away from the age old general principle of finders keepers or if you want it more elegant, prior tempore, potior iure in combination with res nullius cedit occupandi.
[/quote]

And that age old general principle is no more moral than ‘to the victor belong the spoils’. And again no more moral than ‘The earth belongs to the Lord, and everything in it’.

[orion]

[quote]phaethon wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:
All of this however does not take away from the age old general principle of finders keepers or if you want it more elegant, prior tempore, potior iure in combination with res nullius cedit occupandi.
[/quote]

And that age old general principle is no more moral than ‘to the victor belong the spoils’. And again no more moral than ‘The earth belongs to the Lord, and everything in it’.[/quote]

Says you, but to be a victor you have to defeat someone who actually owned it before you and teh second one was never used in order to establish private property.

[Sloth]

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

Not really, because not only is it right below the land, you also need to put some serious work into it to get the raw resources out of them.

[/quote]

And?[/quote]

meaning, that the whole ore issure is part of the whole land issue and that large amounts of capital are required to get it out of the ground.

You could make the argument that while land is more or less just there that it should not include the rights to the stuff underground and in a lot of jurisdictions it does not.

All of this however does not take away from the age old general principle of finders keepers or if you want it more elegant, prior tempore, potior iure in combination with res nullius cedit occupandi.

Meaning, if it belongs to nobody else you can take it (with a few caveats like hunting or fishing rights) and it belongs to you in combination with the older right being the stronger one. [/quote]

Yeah, still not sure what this has to with my point. That being that “finders keepers, now I’ll kill you” isn’t “non-aggression.”

[orion]

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

Not really, because not only is it right below the land, you also need to put some serious work into it to get the raw resources out of them.

[/quote]

And?[/quote]

meaning, that the whole ore issure is part of the whole land issue and that large amounts of capital are required to get it out of the ground.

You could make the argument that while land is more or less just there that it should not include the rights to the stuff underground and in a lot of jurisdictions it does not.

All of this however does not take away from the age old general principle of finders keepers or if you want it more elegant, prior tempore, potior iure in combination with res nullius cedit occupandi.

Meaning, if it belongs to nobody else you can take it (with a few caveats like hunting or fishing rights) and it belongs to you in combination with the older right being the stronger one. [/quote]

Yeah, still not sure what this has to with my point. That being that “finders keepers, now I’ll kill you” isn’t “non-aggression.”[/quote]

But if it belongs to him because he found it first he is not initiating aggression if he defends his property.

[Sloth]

[quote]orion wrote:

But if it belongs to him because he found it first he is not initiating aggression if he defends his property. [/quote]

Who said it belongs to him because he ‘found’ it first? Him and his spear/club? Are we considering “in the beginning, God said, ‘let there be homesteading.’ And there was?”

[orion]

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

But if it belongs to him because he found it first he is not initiating aggression if he defends his property. [/quote]

Who said it belongs to him because he ‘found’ it first? Him and his spear/club? Are we considering “in the beginning, God said, ‘let there be homesteading.’ And there was?”[/quote]

Who else would it belong to if it belonged to noone before?

If you pick mushrooms they belong to you too the moment they are in your possession.

[Sloth]

[quote]orion wrote:

Who else would it belong to if it belonged to noone before?

[/quote]

To noone. Or, to the tribe of the person. Or, to the city of the person. Or, to the nation of the person. Depends on which "In the beginning there was______you’re inclined to. Everyone of these systems depends on aggression to translate it to reality. The newcomer and outsider is excluded, unless a decision is made otherwise. But he certainly isn’t free to use this unmade matter any longer, though he may have never taken such liberties of ‘ownership’ had he’d been the finder. Perhaps he would say “I use what I can immediately, and leave the rest for others to take as they need” and then moved on. He might not have even thought someone else say “All this? MINE!”

[phaethon]

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]phaethon wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:
All of this however does not take away from the age old general principle of finders keepers or if you want it more elegant, prior tempore, potior iure in combination with res nullius cedit occupandi.
[/quote]

And that age old general principle is no more moral than ‘to the victor belong the spoils’. And again no more moral than ‘The earth belongs to the Lord, and everything in it’.[/quote]

Says you, but to be a victor you have to defeat someone who actually owned it before you[/quote]

What makes you think they “actually owned” it?

What moral ground do you have to claim possession of something you didn’t create just because you were first to restrict access to it via force?

[quote]orion wrote:
“Says you, but to be a victor you have to defeat someone who forcefully restricted access to property he had no inherent right to.”
[/quote]

Fixed that for you.

[kilpaba]

[quote]- 1. Libertarianism has an absolute moral principle and thus technically it can be considered not to be a morally relative system. However in practice having a single moral principle does not stop a belief system from being morally relative.

A good example is a belief system of absolute relative morality. If I always believe that everything is morally relative no matter what then I have exactly 1 absolute rule. By having an absolute rule the system can technically be considered a morally absolute system. At the same time it is by definition a morally relative system.[/quote]

I would disagree with you on this point as I did with ThunderBolt for this reason: saying that there is an absolute principle in moral relativism is just a semantic construct. For example, if we look in an empty room and you ask me ‘what is in the room’ and I answer ‘nothing is in the room’ you might be tempted to assign ‘nothingness’ a value. But clearly this is just an artifact of our language.

If a moral relativist is saying ‘any belief system is correct no matter what it is’ you can say that is an absolute moral, but it is no more substantive than saying ‘nothing’ is in an empty room. Or maybe a better example would be ‘the only rule is there are no rules’. Does that mean there is a rule then? I would say no. Libertarianism does not have this deficiency since it is equivocally stating its absolute moral principle.

The next question, if having only one rule implies moral relativism, why does two moral principles avoid the same fate? Surely something might fall outside of that correct? What number is enough to satisfy this?

The fact is the non-aggression principle has a huge number of sub-sets that covers most all of our societies laws as it is (murder, theft, rape, property rights, etc.) so it is not quite as minimalistic as people credit it for. Just because something is considered morally neutral by that principle doesn’t imply it is therefore relative.

[quote]- 2. Some of the statements made by kilpaba are confusing. The most important instance I have read so far is here:

[quote]He can willingly work for someone for free, or take an ass beating if he chooses, but since his immutable right to non-aggression always exists he can decide not to receive aggression any time he chooses, no matter what he signed, and walk away from the contract.
[/quote]

Can you explain exactly what you mean here? So a person can always walk away from a contract and cannot be dealt with via force?[/quote]

Sure thing, as this can be a tricky topic. I will attempt to explain my position better, but here is a good article on my basic point that may help clear things up: Slavery Contracts

Basically, you have an inalienable right to not have physical violence done against you, if you yourself are not committing physical violence towards another. This is an absolute moral principle. So it is impossible with any contract to sign away this right. You can assent to have physical violence done to you (as in the MMA fighter’s case), but as soon as you change your mind you can most assuredly walk away from the contract and not be subject to physical violence as a result.

BUT this does not mean that contracts mean nothing. If money was exchanged for services and service was not rendered you can most certainly claim your money and damages for time/opportunity lost. Otherwise this would be theft, which is an act of aggression, and can thus be defended against. Even if money was not exchanged, but both had agreed to an act that required one side invest money in the endeavor then you would still have a right to claim damages, because you lost money on the assurances of the contract. If they refuse to pay you, you have the right to claim it by necessary force, in our society this would mean going through claims court.

As another example, if someone said 'for XXX amount of money, I will do whatever you want for the rest of my life and you can kill me if I don’t" and you then paid them money, but they said ‘no, I changed my mind’ then you would have every right to get your money back from them plus interest, but you would not have the right to kill them because it is impossible to have that right. Self defense is the only rationale for killing another human.

So to use ThunderBolts example of the fighter and his contract, he absolutely can walk away and not face physical violence, he just has to pay the money and damages that he owes for not going through with his part of the bargain. No violation of the non-aggression policy assuming everyone squares themselves in the end with the contract.

Does that make more sense?

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]kilpaba wrote:

So to use ThunderBolts example of the fighter and his contract, he absolutely can walk away and not face physical violence, he just has to pay the money and damages that he owes for not going through with his part of the bargain. No violation of the non-aggression policy assuming everyone squares themselves in the end with the contract.[/quote]

I really had no interest in taking this further, but this is just getting more and more perplexing - you said earlier that such a contract, because it invoked a violation of your moral right to not be physically harmed, was null.

But people are not obligated to “pay the money and damages that he owers for not going through with his part of the bargain” when a contract is null, because, well, the contract is unenforceable - it’s null. What are you suggesting now is precisely the point I was making that you previously disagreed with: that such a contract is enforceable, and if the person that originally bargained for it breaches it, he is still due for damages under the contract.

You are not making sense. At all.

EDIT; fixed typo.

[phaethon]

[quote]kilpaba wrote:
Sure thing, as this can be a tricky topic. I will attempt to explain my position better, but here is a good article on my basic point that may help clear things up: Slavery Contracts
[/quote]

It is a good article. Thanks :). But it seems to me that the author is imposing his own morals on top of libertarianism.

I.e. That you do not own the right to your own life, and hence you cannot give it away.

Just look at his language use:

“since that obligation depends on my calling as a human being”

But of course this exact same argument can be made about many actions that standard libertarianism doesn’t support. For instance supporting your child etc. His statements do not directly stem from the non-aggression principle.

[quote]kilpaba wrote:
Basically, you have an inalienable right to not have physical violence done against you, if you yourself are not committing physical violence towards another. This is an absolute moral principle.
[/quote]

So then how do courts etc enforce payments? If you gave me 10,000 for x service and I spend the money and don’t perform the service then how do you get the money back if you cannot use physical violence? It obviously isn’t a case of self defense. And it disagrees with what you wrote next.

[quote]kilpaba wrote: Otherwise this would be theft, which is an act of aggression, and can thus be defended against. If they refuse to pay you, you have the right to claim it by necessary force, in our society this would mean going through claims court.
[/quote]

This seems to contradict what you said above. So would you change your above statement to “you have an inalienable right to not have physical violence done against you, as long as they are not reclaiming something that you used aggression to take from them at some point in the past”?

In your opinion is this a fundamental belief of libertarians? Or simply a fundamental belief of yours?

I have read many mises articles that most libertarians disagree with (one of the best was the right of freedom of movement through private property). I think half the trouble in this thread is the difference in core libertarianism beliefs between libertarians is astounding.

I mean the one core principle that libertarians trump up is non-aggression. But every libertarian defines it differently. You seem to have added extra moral principles on top of it for example.

I will comment on the first part after the weekend when I have a bit more time. Thanks for the mature reply.